Chapter Four
I Was Used to It
It was safe to say I was pissed.
It was the next morning after Apollo dealt his death blow.
I was in another gown that was very pretty but didn’t fit me. I was bathed, watered and fed. And a maid who didn’t speak my language had just come to my room, gesturing in a way I knew I was being summoned for something.
I’d heard horses’ hooves on the stone outside so I figured my guard was there.
But I didn’t care.
I hadn’t slept. Not a wink.
This was because, at first, I was hurt.
No.
Wounded. Wounded was the word to describe it.
Wounded deeply.
I didn’t know why. I just knew I was.
Deeply.
Then I started to think on things and I got mad.
Sure, one could say I didn’t want to go back to Pol and endure a life with him, walking on eggshells, taking my beatings whenever whatever was in his head would snap and he’d lose it. Then planning my escape and escaping, only to be found, beaten, dragged back and starting the process all over again and doing all this not very fun stuff until the day I died.
That didn’t work for me. As in really didn’t work.
But I’d been transported by a freaking witch to a freaking parallel universe by a man grieving his wife who was my twin. Then he got me, held me in his arms as I slept (and seriously, what was that all about?) and for some reason decided he didn’t want me (not that I wanted him, either, for God’s sake). And finally, he threw me to the proverbial wolves.
Not that there were wolves, as such. The staff seemed nice, smiling, friendly, solicitous, and it wasn’t like I was in a prison with nowhere to sleep but on cold stone and nothing to eat but moldy bread and fetid water.
But still!
So, needless to say, this all meant I didn’t sleep. Which didn’t help with me being pissed.
But I did force a smile at the maid and followed her, though I did it stomping and even that pissed me off because I still was barefoot so my stomping wasn’t very effective.
I saw him when I was halfway down the stairs and, not surprisingly, he was tall, blond, built and preposterously good-looking.
He was also wearing romance novel guy clothes.
Exhausted and in a bad mood, this annoyed me more.
As I descended the stairs, his eyes lifted to me and his mouth dropped open.
He knew the other Ilsa.
Whatever.
He snapped his mouth shut and wiped his face blank.
I’d seen that before.